Is this question truly off-topic? Or are people just (over) reacting to the "may be better suited" comment?

Question

The author of the comment addressed to me

This may be better suited to a geology or physics site.

says they didn't vote to close, but the comment seems to have none-the-less triggered some reflexive, silent close-voters.

I feel that the question Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin mass anomaly, how to reconcile “isostatic equilibrium” with “heavy metal not sinking”? is certainly on-topic and I have explained my choice of sites to ask it as follows:

..."may be better on" is absolutely not the same as off-topic. This question is 100% on-topic here. I have already posted a link to this and the previous linked question in What on Earth?. Since I am referencing an answer and a question in this site, and a paper about the Moon, based on two sets of lunar satellite data, I decided that the question's audience (future readers of the answers) is more likely to be here.

Question: Is this question truly off-topic? Or are people just (over) reacting to the "may be better suited" comment?

Answer 1

The question is on topic. You might not get the best answer here, but planetary science is considered on topic, and has been from nearly the beginning of the site.

Answer 2

I am hesitant to answer this meta question. Please keep in mind that I am trying to help. However, recently you seem to argue with people trying to help you, such as the "may be better suited" commenter.

Many of your recent questions (not all) are difficult (but not impossible) to understand. They are more complicated than they need to be, and require the reader to spend a lot of time trying to figure them out. For example:

• Many questions are 2 or 3 screenfulls long, and it is hard to locate the actual question. The actual question is sometimes 2/3 the way through the post, and is not in bold or italic, which makes the reader hunt to find it.

• Some of the questions give a quotation, and then ask about some aspect of it. So the reader has to first interpret the quotation, and then understand your question about it. You are doubling the mental steps required by the reader. It would simply be clearer if you directly asked the question.

• Some quotations seem to be excessively long because they include parts that don't matter. Can you edit them down to what is needed?

• On some questions, you seem to argue a particular answer (partially or completely) in the question. The argument makes the question longer than it needs to be, and belongs in an answer.

• Humor is good in small amounts. However, when the reader has to scroll through a screenfull of humor to get to the question, that's excessive. Also, humor does not belong in the question title.

We've all had questions that are on the edge of being closed. What ends up happening in your case is there is so much clutter in the question that people get frustrated about trying to discern whether it is a legitimate question, and vote to close it. Perhaps you are correct that the close votes are not valid, but the excessive length of your questions is not helping you.

Instead of arguing what I have written here, consider this an opportunity to improve your questions. Remember, I am trying to help.